The past decade has been marked by a technological revolution driven by the convergence of the data processing industry with the consumer electronics industry. The effect has, in turn, driven technologies that have been known and available but relatively quiescent over the years. A major one of these technologies is the Internet or Web. The convergence of the electronic entertainment and consumer industries with data processing exponentially accelerated the demand for wide ranging communication distribution channels, and the Web or Internet, which had quietly existed for over a generation as a loose academic and government data distribution facility, reached “critical mass” and commenced a period of phenomenal expansion. With this expansion, businesses and consumers have direct access to all matter of databases providing documents, media and computer programs through related distribution of Web documents, e.g. Web pages or electronic mail. Because of the ease with which documents are distributable via the Web, it has become a major source of data. Virtually all databases of public information throughout the world are accessible and able to be searched via the Web.
The ease with which great volumes of data may be searched from a computer attached to the Internet and equipped with a Web browser has led to the development of widespread electronic commerce over the Web. At the present time, it is becoming very rare to find a business organization of any kind that does not transact some aspect of the business via the Web. As consumers and businesses become more familiar and comfortable with Web transactions, they become more and more willing to try the Web for other commerce.
Another technology, the development of which has been accelerated by the Web, is object oriented programming. The computer and communications industries are extensively participating in the development and upgrading of Java or like object oriented programming that may be distributed over the Internet or Web or like private networks. For details and background with respect to the Java system, reference may be made to a typical text, Just Java, 2nd Edition, Peter van der Linden, Sun Microsystems, 1997.
With the development and rapid expansion of the Web and other like networks, hypertext markup languages became the primary vehicle for distribution of data over such networks. A basic hypertext language, HTML, is described in detail in the above-entitled Just Java text, particularly at Chapter 7, pp. 249-268, dealing with the handling of Web pages; and also in the text, Mastering the Internet, G. H. Cady et al., published by Sybex Inc., Alameda, Calif., 1996, particularly at pp. 637-642, on HTML in the formation of Web pages. The Web pages are implemented so as to be used for the distribution of Web documents containing text, images, both still and moving, and sound, as well as programs.
The above three rapidly evolving technologies: the Web distribution network; object oriented programming; and hypertext markup languages, have now all been correlated into a system for distribution and exchange via the Web of data between any two computer applications. The system is specifically known as Web Services. The system is based on both suppliers of the data in the form of text based documents and the users of such data conforming to several industry standards developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The primary standard is Extensible Markup Language (XML) for defining data and creating markup languages in the form of XML tags. The resulting XML documents are text based and, thus, may be processed on any platform in the distribution of the Web Services. Accordingly, suppliers who wish to offer their Web Services must qualify the proposed services according to the following standards:                XML: a hypertext markup language extensively used in the distribution of Web Services and other electronic business components over the Web. (For a basic description of Web Services, reference is made to the text: Web Services, A Technical Introduction, H. M. Deitel et al., published 2003, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, for general information and particularly to Appendix A, pp. 319-334.)        (SOAP) Simple Object Access Protocol: a protocol established to enable the programming objects that form part of the XML items being distributed to communicate with each other via messages (Chapter 6 of the above text).        (UDDI) Universal Description, Discovery and Integration Registry: where suppliers or developers may list their Web Services offered for distribution, i.e. advertise their Web Services.        (WSDL) Web Services Description Language: an XML language used by suppliers and developers for describing the offered Web Services on the UDDI Registry. (Also described in detail in Chapter 6 of the above-mentioned text.) It should be noted that WSDL is a language intended to be read by computer applications rather than human beings. Thus, all messages generated, including fault messages, are read by applications.        
To users and suppliers of Web Services who are qualified in all of the above required standards, the system has been efficient in the distribution of services over the Web. The items have been selected by interested users from the UDDI, distributed over the Web from the suppliers to such requesting users and subsequently billed to and tracked, if necessary, by the requesting user. This has been done with a minimum of human, i.e. person-machine intervention being necessary; which, of course, is one the advantages and goals of Web distribution.
However, as a wider spectrum of users and even suppliers become interested in Web Services, it will have to be recognized that many in this wider group will not have the computer sophistication needed to easily conform their products and needs to the above protocols necessary to establish Web Services. Consequently, there is a constant need to continually upgrade Web services so as to make such services more user friendly, i.e. to make using such services simpler and more intuitive to users having limited computer and Web sophistication.